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Packers Looking To Trade Down

Actually - everyone in the Top 10 is. That's the word from Mike Mayock via Tom Pelissero. The reasoning makes sense - why draft a guy at 9 and pay him a ton of money when you could get a player of comparable talent around pick 15-20 for a whole lot less? Now that said - Thompson has stated over and over again that he is likely to stand pat this year and take the best player, his reasoning being that you (hopefully) don't find yourself in the Top 10 that often and you want to maximize the opportunity. It will certainly be interesting to see how it plays out.

For my part (I know Alex over at the Lounge gets upset unless I offer an opinion) I hope he trades down if the opportunity presents itself. The sting is still fresh for me from the Cleveland debacle a few years ago. Cleveland offered its first-round pick in 2008, and offered to flip picks with the Packers in rounds two, three and four all for the 16th overall pick in 2007. Thompson opted to sit tight and take Justin Harrell.

You're discounting the financials. Sure you might be able to get to 5 for the same amount in draft picks, but then you have to pay the guy Top 5 money. The ninth spot could be a lot more attractive, esp for a team like the Broncos or the Jets if they're trading up for Sanchez.

Of course, if a team absolutely falls in love with a player, the money between 5 and 9 won't mean a thing.

Packnic
I think teams will be interested in trading up because there is a pretty big drop (in the opinion of several NFL Network guys) between the top 10 or so and the next tier. I'm with Aaron that trading down always makes sense, but I don't agree that one can necessarily get equal talent 10 picks or so later in this draft.
I continue to wait for the draft and the rest of FA before I unload about the defense. Aaron and I are not on the same page at all on that topic. Bottom line, while trading down makes sense, I would be quite happy with Raji, Orakpo, Everett Brown or even Andre Smith at #9. Actually, I want Curry but he'll be LONG gone. Orakpo will be too I think. Anyway, those guys are elite at their positions and they fit what we need. Go ahead Aaron. I'm waiting

Cleveland Debacle? # 16 pick in 2007 for what turned into the # 22 pick in 2008 draft plus moving up 11 spots in 3 rounds (36 from 47, 67 from 78, 103 from 112). Plus Cleveland made similar offers to teams ahead of the Packers and teams after them until Dallas took the deal at # 26. If it was such a slam dunk, why didn't any of the other teams jump on it earlier than Dallas. I just don't see that as anything close to a debacle.

Cleveland wasn't offering the Packers the opportunity to "trade back" in the draft. Cleveland was wanted the Packer's number #1 in exchange for a #1 a year later and merely flipping positions in later rounds. I don't think avoiding that joke of a deal was a "debacle." The Cowboys got a decent offer (i.e., an outright second round pick plus the next year's #1).

The chance to have ZERO number one picks in 2007 and two number one picks in 2008.

Any team could do that at any time. The Packers can trade this year's number one for a number one pick next year to any team in the league. That's a suckers deal and any team in the league would take it.

I always come back to "timing is everything." We get Hawk at 5 om '06, which is fine......but Minnesota got AP at what...#7 the next year? Draft quality is so variable year to year...You gotta really pick your spot to be bad and reap the benefits. I think the consensus this year is the there is talent in the top 5 to 7 but that from there to 20 is pretty even, with the real value for the $ coming from 20 to 50.

What is interesting, and is never spoken of in the land of the purple packer haters, is that the Vikes Passed on Quinn that year to take Peterson. As good as AP is, Minnesota could be in year 3 with a pretty good QB and would have had a much easier time finding a good RB as opposed to a great one.

DDD - I understand the 2007 post is incorrect. Would you prefer I amend it? I left it intact as it was as I wrote it then. Would you prefer I add an addendum? I still think it was foolish of Thompson to take Harrell and not take the deal. You, Thompson and every other GM disagree. Fine. It doesn't change my mind. I think time is proving me right regardless...

bucks - We switched servers last week - lots of errors like that are popping up. Thanks for pointing it out - I'll alert Corey. :)
BTW - which browser were/are you using? Comes up fine on my Firefox...

Come on Aaron, you can't be serious that just because Harrell is not panning out that deal was a good one.

Using that exact same logic, it would have been "worth it" for the Packers to trade away their first round pick for a second round pick straight-up. After all, that way the Packers would have avoided drafting Harrell.

BTW, I have been experiencing some quirks with Chrome, but Firefox works fine.

Aaron, I am getting an error message too. I use Firefox. It says something about InMotion or something like that. I have been getting it 1 or 2 times a day. Haven't run into it at home though and I have Explorer there.

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